Various legislation and guidance includes expectations of organisations in contact with adults with care and support needs. Expectations include:
- Leadership by senior staff
- Having clear policies and procedures
- Making effective arrangements for working with other agencies
- Ensuring that staff are aware of the six principles of safeguarding adults; that they are trained to spot the signs of abuse and neglect, and know-how to raise concerns.
Housing organisations are not required to be members of Safeguarding Adult Boards (SABs) or Adults Protection Committees (APCs) but may be included, or requested to provide information by local authorities. They may also be asked to conduct enquiries.
Legislation includes the Care Act 2014 in England, the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 and the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007.
In Ireland, there is no legislation to instruct the safeguarding of adults, however Safeguarding Ireland runs a voluntary charter which businesses can commit too and in Northern Ireland the main policy for adult safeguarding can be found in their Prevention and Protection in Partnership Policy.
Multi-agency response
For local authorities the Care Act (England), requires them to set up a Safeguarding Adult Board (SAB) to take the strategic lead locally for safeguarding, to help and protect adults and to ensure that members coordinate action to support that objective.
It has explicit duties to:
- publish an annual strategic plan on how it and partners will meet its objective of safeguarding – developed in consultation with communities and the local Healthwatch
- publish an annual report demonstrating what it and members have done to meet the strategic plan
- conduct any Safeguarding Adult Reviews as required under section 44 of the Care Act, where:
- a person has died and it is known or suspected to have resulted from abuse or neglect
- a person is still alive but it is known or suspected that the adult has experienced serious abuse or neglect.
The SAB can also conduct enquiries, or cause others to do so, where they have reasonable cause to suspect that an adult with care and support needs is at risk of or experiencing abuse or neglect, to identify what, if any, action should be taken and by whom. The adult concerned should be involved in that wherever possible.
In Scotland the Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 requires councils and other public bodies to work together to support and protect adults who are unable to safeguard themselves. The Act set up multi-agency Adult Protection Committees (APCs) in every council area.
Adult safeguarding is built on principles which aim to balance a person’s capacity for choice and control with safety from and prevention of harm.
- Empowerment: people are supported and encouraged to make their own decisions, give informed consent
- Prevention: taking action before harm occurs
- Proportionality: taking the least intrusive response to the risk presented
- Protection: providing support and protection for those in greatest need
- Partnership: developing local services, working with communities
- Accountability: and transparency.
Abuse can be:
- Physical - such as assault and restraint
- Sexual – such as sexual innuendo, inappropriate physical contact and indecent exposure
- Psychological – such as verbal abuse, cyber bullying, intimidation, humiliation, isolation
- Financial/material – theft, fraud, coercion, misuse or misappropriation of property
- Discriminatory – harassment, slurs due to race, gender, disability etc
- Organisational – neglect, poor care
- Domestic abuse – sexual, physical, financial, emotional abuse, coercion and control
- Modern slavery
- Neglect/acts of omission
- Self-neglect
The list of examples above is not exhaustive.
This is about ensuring that safeguarding delivers meaningful improvement to people’s lives, by having a person-centred and outcomes-focused approach. It means to engage the person in a conversation about how to respond to their situation as there is no one-size-fits all approach. This empowers them to enhance their involvement, choice and control of the situation.
A review of 21 serious case reviews in England involving housing organisations by Imogen Parry revealed some common concerns both internally within housing organisations, and in terms of the external relationships with statutory agencies. Notably, half of the 21 reviews were concerning adults in general needs housing, reinforcing the challenge to be alert to problems for people across all housing stock.
Improvements required by housing organisations:
- Ensuring databases accurately identify potential vulnerabilities
- Ensuring support and contract monitoring involving adults at risk
- Ensuring sufficient awareness of safeguarding amongst staff at all levels, and effective reporting of concerns.
Improvements required by partners:
- Tackling barriers to sharing information
- Addressing high referral thresholds
- Identifying failures of risk assessments and diagnosis by social care.
Having robust policies and procedures that help to address these issues are included in safeguarding and housing management and cross over with anti-social behaviour and domestic abuse policies.
